Saturday, 6 June 2015

The mere goodness of this cookie, oh my...!
So how did this cookie come about? Well, whilst I was sitting at the dining table having nothing to do and being absolutely bored, somebody brought up her serious cravings for some home made cookies, particularly chocolate cookies. So what other option did I have but to grab one of my absolute favourite books and start baking her some?!
Whenever 'chocolate' appears in the list of ingredients, I usually know beforehand that the product will be a success with the family. Well that was definately also the case with these cookies!
They are super chocolatey and on top of that have a core of caramel goodness.

So first things first: the ingredients

I decided to use milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate what the recipe asked for, but it worked out just as good!Look at those chunks ready to go into the batter:

For the melting caramel centre I used Rolo' s, the only problem was that they sank to the bottom of the cookie during baking...... O well, taste is most important right?! I wouldn't know how to solve this problem though. So if you have any idea, please let me know.

The last interesting ingredient is the coarse sea salt. I have used this product one time before also with cookies. However then the recommended amount turned out to be slightly too much saltiness to my taste, therefore I tried to reduce the amount of salt granules to only 3-4 per cookies which might not seem like enough but definately is!

The dough requires to be made in two different steps: First the dry ingredients have to be mixed and hereafter the wet ingredients. Then both parts can be combined and the chocolate chips can be added with a wooden spoon or spatula. The dough turned out really thick and sticky and had to be chilled in the fridge for at least two hours so the cookies would be easier to shape and not flatten entirely during baking.

The reason for mixing the dry ingredients seperately is to make sure that the baking powder/soda and salt are evenly dispersed among the flour so when the wet and the dry parts come together you have to stir less. This makes sure that there is not too much formation of gluten and thus causes your

cookies to have the perfect structure!

The wet ingredients

Chunks!

And then the waiting began! Two hours chilling allowed me some time to clean the kitchen and prepare the baking sheets.

Finally it was time to assemble the cookies. Two scoops of dough and one caramel candy folded inbetween per cookie. You have to make sure that the two cookie layers are entire sealed together otherwise the caramel will come flowing out during baking. You bake these cookies as balls. During baking they will flatten slightly and when you have taken them out of the oven they will flatten some more as they continue to bake on the hot plate. Therefore the cookies have to be removed from the oven when they appear slightly underbaked!

As you can see the balls flatten a lot, more than I had expected to be honest. But the result of baking them like this is a chewy inside and crispy outside. PERFECT!